Subject: The Plain Truth
Re: "Chatterbox: Godel, Escher, Brock, Part 2"
From: Cato the Censor
Date: Wed Jun 27 8:45 p.m. PT

Although I am Jesuit-educated, there is no better way to bring out the thug in me (which admittedly is never very far below the surface) than actually trying to use the intellectual fripperies of the Liar's Paradox and its greconymic cousins. I have no doubt that the mathematics have utility for some genius inventing a more efficient method of routing telephone calls. However, for the rest of us, it is really far too cute to be trotting out equations to determine whether we should believe Brock. The real question underneath the calculus is whether you can believe a demonstrated liar. … In this case, the answer is straightforward and obvious. If you are a liberal, Brock is now telling the truth. If you are a conservative, he is now lying.

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Subject: Forget the Problems

Re: "Culturebox: Plotholes—Memento"

From: Mangar

Date: Thu Jun 28 10:45 p.m. PT

[Editor's note: You might not want to read this post if you're planning to see Memento.]

I agree! I disagree! All of the "plot holes" here are things that could be picked up by a very astute watcher of the film on their first viewing. However, at the end of the movie, everything does end up making sense. Leonard is engaged in an intricate game of self-deception which does look like anteriograde amnesia almost all of the time except when it would be inconvenient. This is OK—it fits. It's not even special pleading: The message of the film is that we're all engaged in self-deception towards the end of achieving meaning in life; Leonard is just an extreme case.

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Subject: Why Popular Is Good

Re: "Culturebox: Not Another Impressionism Show"

From: Rich Mahady

Date: Wed Jun 27  6:23 a.m. PT

If another Impressionist painter's show means another museum dealing with sold-out showings, then let there be more of them! I am well beyond the point of tolerating arts organizations that believe that we taxpayers owe them a living. It is as intolerable for the Brooklyn museum or the MFA in Boston to ask for money from the taxpayers as it is for Giuliani to ask for the same taxpayers to subsidize Steinbrenner's next pleasure palace or the Dead Sox to ask Massachusetts to cough up for the next Fenway.

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